Martha Minow

At a Nov. 29 talk co-sponsored by the Harvard Federalist Society, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels shared his experience in leading the charge for a new law that enacted a series of secondary education reforms in Indiana last year—reforms which many observers have called the most far-reaching changes yet adopted by any state.

HLS Dean Martha Minow received the Gold Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Public Discourse from the College Historical Society of Trinity College, Dublin at a ceremony on Nov. 13, 2012. The College Historical Society, popularly referred to as “The Hist,” is one of the world’s oldest undergraduate debating societies, established in 1770.

This year’s 1L class at Harvard Law School includes 16 military veterans. There are also nine 2Ls, six 3Ls, and three LL.Ms at HLS with records of military service. Thirteen are attending through the Yellow Ribbon program, through which the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs matches what a law school offers to pay for a veteran’s tuition and expenses. HLS is one of very few schools making the maximum commitment—50 percent—which means, with the V.A.’s match, these veterans attend for free. Others are funding their HLS educations through the G.I. Bill and student loans. The three Navy JAG lawyers in the LL.M. program each receive a scholarship from HLS equivalent to the amount covered by the School under the Yellow Ribbon Program; their remaining costs are covered by the U.S. Navy.

Barack Obama ’91 has won election to the presidency of the United States for a second term.

This year’s 1L class at Harvard Law School includes 16 military veterans. There are also nine 2Ls, six 3Ls, and three LL.Ms at HLS with records of military service. Thirteen are attending through the Yellow Ribbon program, through which the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs matches what a law school offers to pay for a veteran’s tuition and expenses. HLS is one of very few schools making the maximum commitment—50 percent—which means, with the V.A.’s match, these veterans attend for free. Others are funding their HLS educations through the G.I. Bill and student loans. The three Navy JAG lawyers in the LL.M. program each receive a scholarship from HLS equivalent to the amount covered by the School under the Yellow Ribbon Program; their remaining costs are covered by the U.S. Navy.

On September 21, more than 80 lawyers, anthropologists, students and friends gathered at a symposium at Harvard Law School to honor Sally Falk Moore, the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Anthropology, Emerita, for her distinguished and multi-faceted career, for her more recent work as an Affiliated Professor in International Legal Studies at HLS, and for her extraordinary service as a teacher and mentor to students in the HLS Graduate Program. 

Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow and John Levi ’72, LL.M. ‘73, the chairman of the Legal Services Corporation, presented the report of the Corporation’s Pro Bono Task Force in in HLS’s Wasserstein Hall on Oct. 3, at an event hosted by HLS Professor David Wilkins ‘80, director of the Law School’s Program on the Legal Profession. Established in 1974 by President Nixon, the LSC, a private, nonprofit corporation, is the nation’s largest funder of legal aid providers for low-income Americans.

The second Celebration of Latino Alumni, held at Harvard Law School from Sept. 27 to 30, drew about 200 alumni and guests to the school to share their experiences and reflect on the path of social change.

Many readers and viewers wonder if John Osborn Jr. had someone special in mind when he created the imperious professor in his 1971 hit novel “The Paper Chase,” based on his Harvard Law School years. With a careful reply, the author told HLS Dean Martha Minow and a crowd gathered at Austin Hall Thursday for a discussion about his book that the character was actually a composite of several people. But, he added, “It wasn’t like it was hard to find role models.”

Officially launched on Sept. 25, the Harvard Law School Public Service Venture Fund will award $1 million in grants each year to Harvard Law graduates pursuing careers in public service. The Fund supports two kinds of post-graduate fellowships: “seed grants” for startup public interest ventures, and, through “existing organization-based fellowships,” salary support to graduating HLS students to work at nonprofits or government agencies in the U.S. and abroad.

In October 1962, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at Harvard Law School on “The Future of Integration.” It was six months before he would be imprisoned in a Birmingham jail, 10 months before the March on Washington, almost two years before the signing of the Civil Rights Act and almost six years before his assassination. “It may be that the law cannot make a man love me,” he said, “but it can keep him from lynching me.”

On Sept. 5, U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Elena Kagan ’86 joined Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow for a conversation on life as a Supreme Court Justice. The former and current deans spoke before an overflow audience in the Wasserstein Hall, Caspersen Student Center, Clinical Wing building.

Harvard Law School Professor John C.P. Goldberg has been appointed to the Eli Goldston Professorship of Law. Goldberg, an expert in tort law, tort theory and political philosophy, joined HLS as a tenured faculty member in 2008. Previously, he was Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Research at Vanderbilt University.

Cass Sunstein ’78, administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), will return to the Harvard Law School faculty as Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law following his planned departure in August from the Obama Administration, Dean Martha Minow announced today.

The Harvard Law School faculty has voted to promote Benjamin Sachs, a specialist in labor and workplace law, from assistant professor to professor of law – a tenured faculty position.

Following a vote of the Harvard Law School faculty, D. James Greiner, a specialist in the application of modern quantitative thinking to legal questions, has been promoted from assistant professor to professor of law—a tenured faculty position.